Democrats put faith in nonpartisan candidates

Saturday’s the big election day, the day that definitively begins the big turnaround that, politically speaking, moves Texas from red to purple to blue.

At least that’s what Texas Democrats, members of a party that’s had little reason to party since prior to the turn of this century, want us to believe. Yes, we’ve heard this before. First, we must deal with this fact: You didn’t even know that Saturday is an election day. Well it is, though there’s not a partisan race on the ballots. Nevertheless, Texas Dems hope to win some of those nonpartisan contests.

Here’s the deal: We all know what hasn’t worked for Texas Dems for the past generation or so — statewide, traditional and top down. So now they’re trying something else — local, nontraditional and bottom up.

They might be on to something. We’ll see Saturday in city council and school board races around Texas.

You know the Dems’ sad recent history in Texas statewide races. But let’s review some of the lowlights anyway: The short version is they haven’t won a statewide race since 1994.

Since then, in various incarnations, it’s been eternal hope followed by crushing disappointment.

Any of these Democratic statewide candidate names ring a bell? Tony Sanchez, Ron Kirk, Chris Bell, Bill White, Wendy Davis, the 2002 “Dream Team.” All were top or near-the-top-of-the-ticket statewide candidates. All were losers, big time.

So, in its latest comeback effort, the once-mighty Texas Democratic Party on Saturday is using a bottom-up strategy based on local races in which political party isn’t supposed to matter.

How local? How about Arnetta Henderson’s bid for a position on the board of the College of the Mainland. (FYI, the College of the Mainland is a community college on the mainland in Texas City.) And then there’s Linda Robinson’s campaign for the Bellmead City Council and Curtis Cornelius’ effort to win a seat on the Little Elm City Council and Nakisha Paul’s race for the Texas City school board.

All of these and more are nonpartisan local contests in which the state Democratic Party has endorsed candidates. I’ll leave it to you to judge whether it’s bad manners for political parties to endorse in